Rights Group Urges Thailand To Stop Forced Return Of Hmong

[Thaising]

BANGKOK - THE Thai government must stop sending ethnic Hmong people seeking refuge in Thailand back to Laos without first assessing if they face abuse and persecution back home, Human Rights Watch said on Thursday.

Eleven migrants last week left an informal refugee camp home to about 8,000 Hmong in northern Thailand and returned to Laos, ahead of an official visit to Vientiane by the new Thai Prime Minister Samak Sundaravej.

Officials from neighbouring Thailand and Laos said the 11 had volunteered to return home, but some monitoring groups reported that the Thai military used dogs to force the families onto trucks.

The Thai government's claim that these were 'volunteers' who wanted to return to Laos is highly dubious,' said Bill Frelick, refugee policy director for New York-based Human Rights Watch.

'Volunteers don't need police dogs to coax them onto trucks.'

Thailand has said it plans to repatriate all the Hmong in the camp in Phetchabun, which rights groups say violates international law as the United Nations refugee agency had been denied access to the camp.

'Without a fair and transparent procedure to screen refugees, Human Rights Watch considers Thailand's forcible return of these 11 Hmong to Laos as refoulement, a violation of its international law obligations,' Mr Frelick said.

The Hmong fought alongside US forces in the 1960s and 70s when the Vietnam War spilled into Laos.

After the war ended in 1975, many fled to the jungles fearing the communist authorities would hunt them down them for working with the Americans.

Amnesty International said last year that Lao forces were still hunting and committing abuses against scattered groups of former Hmong fighters hiding in the jungles - a claim denied by Laos.